One incident provided a terrible disappointment. During a night raid I was approaching a small river bridge where I had a sentry with a Lewis gun. The searchlights and AA guns were weaving and grumbling around Singapore to the south, when there came the noise of an approaching aircraft, flying very low. It was following the river towards the bridge and I stopped the car to watch with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation. To my horror the twin-engined bomber flew straight over the bridge unmolested and continued northwards. Roaring up I leapt out of the car and asked the young sentry why the hell he had not fired. ‘They were flashing a recognition signal at me. Sir, I didn’t know whether they were ours or theirs.’ Somehow I controlled myself and explained patiently what I thought the simplest Tamil girl knew; that there weren’t any of ‘ours’.
This was just about true. Certainly, by the end of January all our few bombers had left for Sumatra. None of us ever saw any, though this does not mean they did not do sterling work elsewhere. The fighter picture was a little, though not much better. The Brewster Buffaloes that had come out too late to help the Prince of Wales and Repulse had proved no match whatever for the Japanese Zero fighters, the excellent performance of which had taken the RAF completely by surprise. However, 50 Hurricanes duly arrived, some flown off the carrier Indomitable (repaired after the grounding that had cost Force Z so dear) and some in crates. They could have made a considerable impact en masse but of necessity were thrown in piecemeal.
The Naval Guard were used increasingly for ad hoc duties that arose and when the new Motor Ship Sussex arrived at Stores Basin to unload crates of Hurricanes, guns and other important items, I found myself there with a large contingent. The native labour would not work after dark for fear of the bombing and we took over from 17:00 to 05:00 for several nights. The aircraft usually came over in ‘V’ formations of 27, though sometimes of nine, the bombs landing over a considerable area to raise acres of ascending smoke and debris. As a matter of fact this was preferable to the sneak raids of single aircraft. One gauged the course of the ‘V’, and if it was not coming directly over, worked on.
A rasping, nasal Japanese voice on Penang radio took to announcing where the bombers were going to next—the city, the Naval Base, Keppel Harbour, and so on—underlining the impotence of the defence. Formations were usually escorted by Zeros—superior to the Hurricanes, which had mostly inexperienced pilots. The latter went up again and again most gallantly, but their numbers diminished every day. I met one Squadron Leader who had shot down a goodish number and was a byword, but he was killed eventually.
The First Officer of the Sussex, one Ian Posgate, and I became very friendly. Just before she sailed he said ‘you know this place isn’t going to last, why not send your kit home with me?’ Although little had gone right for us I think this was the first time I had heard the possibility of defeat actually mentioned openly. Anyhow, I handed over a trunk full of all the gear I could spare. (Following tactful enquiries after my health, it turned up at home and a good time later.)
Raids on the base continued and we all became somewhat tired. Lack of sleep is a morale reducer as modern secret police well know. As far as the general run of the ratings was concerned, it appeared that they were serving no useful purpose ashore, a difficult notion to refute; and with the constant bombing, comparative idleness and increasingly bad news as the army continued to retreat, morale was not too good. Personally I was lucky in having a special antidote. I would report daily to Captain Atkinson and his cheery ‘Hello Brooke, what’s up today?’, followed by a breezy description of some happening and what he wanted me to do, delivered as if he was ‘telling off the hands’ at Portsmouth, was a tonic.
By mid-January the enemy had taken Port Swettenham and Kuala Lumpur, the virtual capital of mainland Malaya. In little more than a month he had gone from Siam to Johore. However, there was one bit of news that cheered us all. A Major Rose of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders had been given a special force which was taken up the west coast by Lieutenant Commander Victor Clark* (ex-Repulse) in large motor launches. Landing well behind enemy lines, they ambushed and destroyed a column and were embarked again with minimal loss. Shortly afterwards, Clark (eventually to receive a DSC and Bar), took the gunboats Dragonfly and Scorpion to rescue a brigade cut off near Batu Pahat. Four nights running, boats were got up a shallow creek, Clark and his officers often swimming as the Japanese were within earshot, to ferry the 2,000 exhausted soldiers down to the waiting ships. (I overheard one of Dragonfly’s ship’s company describing these dashing exploits to another sailor who remarked that his CO must be very brave. ‘Too bloody brave for my liking!’ was the heartfelt reply.)
I was in charge of a section of the FSA for ARP (Air Raid Precautions) purposes and unless away with the Guard, had to remain in a ground floor office during an attack. This was no fun, and in retrospect, rather stupid. A heavy steel plate was imported to put across the entrance, behind which a Petty Officer and I cowered ignominiously. One bomb landed 15 yards away, fortunately in soft ground, though the steel plate did its stuff all right. Only four buildings eventually escaped damage, the two most serious losses being the galley and the officers’ club (used as an overflow Wardroom), both of which were completely wrecked. But on the whole the FSA buildings stood up to it well, probably due to their free ventilation design. Cooking now had to be done on a field kitchen in the open, fortunately arranged before the war by Commander Livingstone, the Maintenance Commander.
With no battlefleet and the few elderly light cruisers and destroyers based on Singapore becoming ever more vulnerable. Admiral Layton sent them all to Colombo in mid-January and repaired there himself. This left Rear Admiral, Malaya, as the senior naval officer. He was Rear Admiral E.J. Spooner, my one-time Captain in the training cruiser Vindictive, On hearing that the constant bombing was having a bad effect on the ratings at the FSA he ordered that the ‘Jim Crow’ system (instituted by Churchill whereby factory workers did not take shelter until actually told to by a watcher on the roof) should be implemented and came up to impress it on us himself. This excellent intention was dramatically dashed. It was ‘clear lower deck’ one morning on the parade ground, with every man-jack clustered round a small wooden dais on which stood the Admiral and the Captain (Captain L.H. Bell, who had been on Admiral Phillips’ staff). He had just begun to speak when the drone of bombers heralded the inevitable ‘V’. He took no notice though all eyes were fastened intently heavenward. It was clear they were coming straight over us—a target too good to be true—and it soon became hard to hear the Admiral above the shouts of Petty Officers preventing men on the outskirts of the throng from making off.
The Captain eventually took a hand and Admiral Spooner gave way, ordering the disperse. A headlong rush for the shelters was only just completed when the familiar whistling began, to end as hundreds of bombs crashed all round. The Admiral, who had taken cover in the nearby Regulating Office, was hit on the head by a brass clock that was shaken off the wall. He made his way back to his car amidst all the dust and rubble and, though one felt sorry for its champion, that was the last we heard of Jim Crow.
The officers working up country continued to appear briefly with increasingly pessimistic tales. Everyone was exhausted, though it was hoped that now the line was back in Johore we really would hold them. It did not happen.
Drafts of naval personnel had been leaving, mostly for Ceylon, as suitable ships put in and by the end of January there must have been less than a dozen officers and 300 men remaining at the FSA, though there were staff officers and others accommodated there. The Admiral was clearly in a dilemma. There was nothing worthwhile for us to do; we were in fact ‘useless mouths’, but wholesale evacuation of the Navy would undoubtedly be bad for general morale.
It must have been January 29 that some of us received an urgent message to report to the War Room in the dockyard, there to be told by Captain Atkinson and the Staff Officer (Operations), Commander St Aubyn, that the Army was going to wi
thdraw across the causeway into Singapore Island that night. We were to provide boats for a Dunkirk operation if the causeway became impassable. We received the impression, soon confirmed, that it would be more a question of when the causeway became impassable. Commander Hoffman, Captain of the gunboat Grasshopper which had escaped from Hong Kong, was in overall charge, Ian Forbes was to be beachmaster for a couple of hundred yards of sea-wall to the west of the causeway, I the same on the eastern side.
There was no time to lose and we dashed off to make the necessary preparations, detailing crews and collecting boats, ropes, scrambling nets and Jacob’s ladders and securing them along the sea walls. Preparations were about complete when word came in the evening that the operation was postponed 24 hours. Finishing touches were put the next day after which there was nothing to do but wait. I had a look round Johore Bahru, the main feature of which was the Sultan’s palace with its tall castellated tower. The causeway, a solid boulder-based embankment rising some 20 feet above the water and wide enough to carry a road and railway line, led straight, to a crossroads among pleasant white stone houses where the main road to Malaya came in from the left. One imagined that its tranquil length would be hotly contested; it was already covered by machine-guns and an armoured car stood ready to give battle at the edge of some trees. I went over and talked to her red-haired, tam-o’-shantered Captain. He was in good spirits and together we investigated an empty shop (civilians had been evacuated) full of radiograms and expensive English tennis racquets. We swung them in the confined space, childishly discovering the ones with the best grip, the realities of the world outside somehow far away.
Lieutenant Hayes of the Repulse was liaison officer on the staff of the Corps Commander, Lieutenant General Sir Louis Heath, and towards evening he sent a message to say that I was invited to dine with the General and his staff. This surprising and welcome happening was an education. The Corps HQ was in a group of huts on a nearby hill and we sat down at a long table decked out with glass and gleaming cutlery and attended by mess waiters, just as if it was Aldershot (or rather, Simla; General Heath was Indian Army*.) Talk was bright, varied and on anything but the war, which was not mentioned once. Cricket seemed to be the main topic. Eventually the General, a fine looking, powerful one-armed man reminiscent of Haig, pushed back his chair and said ‘Well gentlemen, it is time to draw stumps’. The shirtsleeved khaki diners reached for their map cases, rose as one and dispersed into the darkness. The carefree atmosphere went with them and down by the water a cold breeze blew.
A party of engineers, including a Naval officer, were putting finishing touches to a dozen depth charges they had buried in the causeway. The plan was for the Army, numbering some 30,000, to retreat across it under cover of darkness. Even for a sailor there was no difficulty in grasping the delicacy of this undertaking. One and all predicted it would be sticky. Two possibilities made it plainly doubtful. These were failure to disengage from the Japanese, when they would have sitting targets as the last troops crossed the causeway, and their bombing of the latter should the ambitious extent of the retreat be discovered; the chance to trap our men in Johore would be too good to miss. In which case the beachmasters would naturally be the last to leave.
The sun went down with its usual suddenness and the first of an endless stream of motor transport, guns, Bren carriers and ambulances began to trundle across. The moon came out making their shaded stern lights hardly necessary. Of course, there was no question of sleep and hours later the scene had not changed. About 02:00 there was still no sound of battle, though if the job was not completed by daylight the fat would surely be in the fire. I could have gone up to the bungalow whence the bridgehead units were being commanded to hear the official news of progress but preferred to let events overtake me.
At last the motorised cavalcade thinned. It ceased; and then came the infantry. Dawn found me beside the road, fascinated. The steady tramp of feet seemed to embody time; crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. Small men, big men, tall men, lean men, brown men, red-faced men, and all sweating, dirty men, not a few bleeding. There was not one without a happy glint in his eye as he came in sight of the shining water. Over the other side they saw haven, at any rate a relief, rest for a spell. Most of them had fought galling delaying actions all down the peninsula, outnumbered, out-equipped, it must be admitted in some cases out-generalled, and always without air support in face of vicious attacks. Singapore, the bastion of the east, was waiting to take them in. What a broken reed she was to prove!
It grew lighter as I watched, and those of us waiting cast many an anxious glance at the sky. They came on and on and on, like an eternal brown crocodile, platoons on alternate sides back to the crossroads and then along to the left, where the armoured car still stood, battened down and ready.
Soon it was daylight, and still they came on. Would they never end? Norfolks, Leicesters, East Surreys, Australians, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Punjaubis … I raised a smile from many a grimy face. The sight of a Naval officer ashore, and an unnaturally clean one at that, tickled them a lot. Several gave me the ‘thumbs-up’ sign. Later I was joined by a few sailors from the boats who were also finding the wait a bit irksome and was proud to hear one Tommy say ‘The Nighvy’s here at any rate!’ The bearing of all was so good, that we just had to watch; we felt we were seeing something.
And then the dreaded moment came. It was broad daylight, about 07:30. The drone of bombers drowned even the marching feet, and there to the north-west was a formation of 27, flying as a great ‘V’, straight for the causeway. We scattered for cover. I made myself very small beside a Bren-gunner in a slit trench and, screwing up our eyes, we watched. They came overhead; we listened, trying to detect the well known screech, ready to flatten. Not a sound. Hardly able to believe it, we watched them fly on, and out of sight, towards Singapore.
Australians and Gordons of the outer bridgehead were coming in now and I got the order to stand by to leave. So it had come off. Even if disaster overtook us now, the main army was over, however late on schedule.
And then I heard the pipes. Pealing, whirling, screaming derision at all enemies of Scotland; a wild, thrilling sound that, coming at a moment of dramatic relief to nervous tension, made one want to cry and sing at the same time; rising and falling, mad, exultant. Two pipers were fallen in by the side of the road. This was a strange setting for those highland airs—the square white houses, the lush green vegetation, the bright blue sky and behind, the jungle. They skirled and rang in the sultry air, lighting the faces around and bringing an added jauntiness to their step. It came to me that many of their number were still in that jungle, stiff in the attitudes in which they had fallen, or dying slowly of thirst and wounds; unmarked, save by parakeets or a chance Jap infantryman lucky to enhance his equipment. I thought to myself that one day the enemy would pay; one day these impudent Japanese would be made to grovel. I made an inward resolution I would be there to see it.
Australians, marching to the pipes, were nearly through, and the men of the inner bridgehead (a semi-circle of strongpoints and carefully sited machine-guns, last to retire) awaited the word. They were Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a shadow of the battalion which had gone into action five weeks before. The honour of covering the retreat was their due.
The Bren beside me folded with a snap as its owner ran off grinning to form up. The Commanding Officer, (Lieutenant Colonel Stewart, who had recently received the DSO) came down the steep grass bank from Headquarters’ bungalow. The curtain was going to fall in style. Hayes, who was with him, waved to me, crossing his arms above his head in the seaman’s sign which means ‘Secure; all finished’.
I stayed for a last look before going down to the boat and away. They came swinging past behind the bagpipes, mostly small men, I noticed. Hard, dour, and as tough as leather, they marched with a long supple stride and there was an arrogant confidence about them.
The pipers were playing ‘Bonnie Dundee’ as I ran down to the boat. We went off at full speed t
owards the Naval Base. Halfway across, the air was shattered by a huge reverberating explosion and a pyramid of black smoke and masonry rose ponderously into the air, seeming to fan out and hang like a giant toadstool before thundering back to earth. The causeway had gone up, like a drawbridge behind the Army. I shaded my eyes with my hand and strained my ears.
Just visible at its Singapore end were the last miniature figures strutting away, and over the lazy water, above which the air was already a shimmer with the torpid Malayan day, came the strains, thin, proud, defiant, of ‘Bonnets over the Border’.
The FSA, separated from the water by a few football pitches—and about four miles from the causeway—was now in the front line and evacuation in full swing. Our two Marine detachments were despatched to join the Argylls and as the ships had been West Country ones the combination became the ‘Plymouth Argylls’. Told to report to the RAF transit camp at Seleta, near the west coast about five miles away, I found Terry and the rest of the men in attap huts on a rubber plantation. Forbes was appointed to the Grasshopper and I did not see him again.
Instructions had apparently been received to leave everything at the Naval Base untouched for the Army to take over. The first part of this was carried out but not the latter. Word came through that nothing much was happening there (clearly the enemy were resting and preparing for a final assault on the island) and I returned over the next few days to collect useful items, movement becoming more restricted each time. It was strange to have to slink about the irrigation ditches and run crouching past gaps among buildings, where so recently everything had been normal. I joined a Gurkha unit that was keeping watch from the top of the canteen. Their British officer pointed out the Japanese positions opposite and through his glasses I could see figures moving about. His men wanted to hear about the destroyer Gurkha, about which I was fortunately well informed and he translated word for word to the little grinning desperadoes with their vicious kukris.
Alarm Starboard!: A Remarkable True Story of the War at Sea Page 17